New York State could collect $1.75 million in damages a month from the developer to provide affordable housing—but chooses not to. 

In 2006, the State of New York approved the $6 billion Atlantic Yards project on the justification that it would cure blight caused by the MTA rail yard along Atlantic Avenue, and provide badly-needed affordable housing to Brooklynites in danger of displacement. It was to be completed by 2016. But in 2009, the State allowed the developer to renegotiate the project’s completion to 2035. Community groups concerned about the delayed affordable housing and rapid gentrification pushing out Black residents  threatened a Fair Housing lawsuit. In 2014, the State agreed to settle with the community, and committed to completing a promised 2,250 affordable apartments at Atlantic Yards by May 2025. If the affordable units were not completed by that deadline, Empire State Development (ESD) agreed to collect from the developer $2,000 per unit per month.  The money was to go to the City of New York to create and preserve affordable housing in neighborhoods near the project.

Eleven years later, the  May 2025 deadline has passed and the developer has yet to start a remaining 877 affordable apartments in buildings planned for construction on a platform over the blighting rail yard. ESD has done nothing to collect the $1,754,000 per month in damages due, even though the City could put the money to use accelerating affordable housing projects in recently-rezoned areas nearby. Instead, ESD is allowing itself to be strung along by investors speculating in the distressed debt of the project’s developer, who have yet to demonstrate they are capable of completing the project.

Governor Hochul, we join local elected officials in calling on you to honor the commitment the State made to the community surrounding Atlantic Yards.  Direct ESD to collect the damages due for the developer's failure to meet the agreed-upon affordable housing deadline. This money can be used to develop affordable housing now. And the public can have no confidence in any new plan for Atlantic Yards put forward by an agency that is not willing to hold developers accountable.